"Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
...the fortune of us that are the moon's men doth ebb and flow like the sea, being govern'd, as the sea is, by the moon" [Henry IV, I.ii.31-33]
HISTORY NEVER REPEATS ITSELF, BUT IT OFTEN RHYMES
"There is a Providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children and the United States of America." Otto von Bismarck

Subscribe To

Friday, December 21, 2007

US Women's Fecundity Increases

ABC News reports that America's moms are reproducing at a rate well above that of other advanced industrialized nations. Much higher than Italy and Russia. The US has a reproductive rate of 2.1 per family [or mother per lifetime] as opposed to 1 in Italy & .33 in Russia. Even without cash & tax incentives, which many EU countries supply, US moms are ensuring that by 2040, there will be 400 million Americans, as opposed to about 110 million Russians. Wonder who won the Cold War now?

AEI has more stats and an interesting paragraph on "American Exceptionalism:"

Given the almost gravitational pull of social aging and population decline on Western population profiles during the coming generations, one of the most surprising findings of the UNPD report is how very resistant the United States looks to these common trends. America’s demography looks very different from that of other developed countries—thus, in important respects, America may not share their demographic future.

For a developed country, America’s fertility levels today are remarkably high. Apart from tiny Iceland, the estimated total U.S. fertility rate in the late 1990s was actually the highest in the developed world: just over 2 births per woman per lifetime, versus an average of 1.4 births per lifetime for the rest of the grouping. America’s changing ethnic composition (according to the Census Bureau, Hispanic-Americans now equal African-Americans in total numbers) accounts for part of this difference—but only part. "Non-Hispanic white" American women are currently having 1.7 births per lifetime.

By both historical tradition and current practice, the United States is favorably disposed toward immigration: In the late 1990s, America took in almost half of all the newcomers absorbed by the developed countries. Thanks to these twin characteristics—relatively high fertility and relatively high levels of immigration—the United States is set to chart a different course from the rest of the Western world in the decades ahead.

For one thing, America’s population, while aging, is nonetheless likely to remain distinctly younger than the rest of the West’s. The UNPD’s "medium" scenario illustrates the point: In 2050, median age in America would be about forty-one years (it’s currently thirty-six)—but in the rest of the West, it would be over forty-nine years. No other now-developed country would have such a young populace: In fact, in these projections America’s age profile would be far closer to that of the future Mexico than that of the future Europe. If social aging is a worry, the United States will have to worry that much less.

Unlike the rest of the West, moreover, the United States is poised for continued population growth over the coming decades. Again, the "medium" scenario is illustrative: Where other developed countries as a group shrink by 15 percent between now and 2050, the United States grows by about 40 percent—more than any other now-developed nation.

Today America is the world’s third largest country; fifty years from now, in the UNPD’s "medium" scenario, it is still third (after only India and China). But the relative balance between the United States and other areas would also shift in some interesting directions. There are now two Americans for every Russian. In 2050, the ratio would be four to one—and there would also be almost four Americans for every Japanese. Even if the current membership of the European Union were to form a single state, its projected 2050 population would be significantly smaller than America’s. To the extent that population matters in international affairs, America’s demographic prospects would seem to support—or even enhance—U.S. global influence in the years ahead.

Of course, the ABC TV story had to have the obligatory bleat by a skeletor look-alike named Paul Ehrlich moaning than these children will buy cars and otherwise participate in a capitalist economy---contributing to global warming and God-knows what else. Ehrlich had that eunuch look of die-hard lefties & lifetime loo-zers.

Thankfully, Death-warmed-over urban degenerates like Ehrlich do not represent the mass of American people---whose collective wisdom Bill Clinton used to sing the praises of incessantly, until they voted in the Republicans.

1 comment
:

I guess Israel is not to be considered a 'developed' country by ABC, then?

Of course, by mid-Century, more of these new Americans will be of Hispanic descent than of European descent. We could just annex Mexico and the whole of South America today and get their by 2010. But I'm not sure that would be the same US.

Facebook Badge

Links

About Me

"''I have drunk ale from the Country of the Young And weep because I know all things now: I have been a hazel-tree, and they hung The Pilot Star and the Crooked Plough
Among my leaves in times out of mind....' Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments...the fortune of us that are the moon's men doth ebb and flow like the sea, being govern'd, as the sea is, by the moon."
Twenty-and-eight the phases of the moon, The full and the moon’s dark and all the crescents, Twenty-and-eight, and yet but six-and-twenty The cradles that a man must needs be rocked in: For there’s no human life at the full or the dark. From the first crescent to the half, the dream But summons to adventure and the man Is always happy like a bird or a beast; But while the moon is rounding towards the full He follows whatever whim’s most difficult...An aged man is but a paltry thing,A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress....Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.